New filings with the Federal Election Commission show that Elon Musk gave $10 million to campaigns for Senate Republicans in October. Musk has donated millions to political action committees working to elect Republican candidates this election cycle, including about $75 million to his pro-Trump America Pac. This latest filing shows that Musk donated $10 million to the Senate Leadership Fund, a super Pac working to flip the Senate to Republican control. The fund has spent at least $210 million supporting Repubican candidates for Senate this year.

Barack Obama has referenced John Kelly’s comments about Donald Trump’s authoritarian tendencies.

“The other day, General John Kelly, Donald Trump’s former chief of staff, said that Trump told him he wanted his generals be like Hitler’s generals,” Obama said.

“In politics, a good rule of thumb is don’t say you want to do anything like Hitler.”

“These are serious people,” Obama added, speaking of Kelly and Mark Meadows, who both served as Trump’s chief of staff. “They are not, quote, unquote, woke liberals. They are people who have never in the past even talked about politics, because they believe that the military should be above politics. But the reason they’re speaking up is because they have seen that in Donald Trump’s mind, the military does not exist to serve the Constitution or the American people. He doesn’t see being commander in chief as a solemn, sacred responsibility, just like everything else. He thinks the military exists to do his bidding, to serve his interests.”

Barack Obama is now speaking at Kamala Harris’ rally in Atlanta. The ex-president acknowledged the line-up of celebrity guests that preceded him and then encouraged the crowd to go vote, before launching into a version of the stump speech he has given at other Harris campaign events.

“Now we know this election is going to be tight because a lot of Americans are still struggling,” Obama said. “So I get why people are looking to shake things up. What I cannot understand is why anybody would think that Donald Trump will shake things up in a way that is good for you.”

Speaking at Kamala Harris’ rally in Atlanta, actor Tyler Perry has denounced Donald Trump and says that today he voted for Harris.

“I watched [Trump] from the Central Park Five to Project 2025. What I realized is in this Donald Trump’s America, there is no dream that looks like me. We want a president who believes the American dream is for everyone. That president is Kamala Harris,” Perry said. Noting the close margin of votes in Georgia’s 2020 presidential election, Perry added: “Every vote counts.”

A star-studded line-up of politicians and celebrities have rallied attendees of Kamala Harris’s campaign event in Atlanta, Georgia, this evening. Harris and Barack Obama are expected to speak at 7.30 ET. Ahead of them, actor Samuel L Jackson, director Spike Lee, senators Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossof, and actor Tyler Perry have spoken to voters.

“Let me say that I do not believe that significant numbers of Black men are going to vote for the likes of Donald Trump,” Warnock said, referencing data that has shown young Black men are increasingly leaning toward the ex-president. “I don’t believe that. Now, we are not a monolith. There will be some. But there won’t be this wave. After all, we know who Donald Trump is.”

Earlier, Bruce Springsteen – who has endorsed Harris – performed Land of Hope and Dreams and Dancing in the Dark. The musician warned the audience that Trump was running to become “an American tyrant”.

Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren – whose grandmother was taken to an Indian boarding school in Riverside, California – has released a statement thanking President Joe Biden for his expected apology for the US government’s role in the boarding school system.

“For generations, Native children, including many from the Navajo Nation, were subjected to an education system that sought to erase our languages, cultures and identities,” Nygren said.

“By recognizing this tragic legacy, President Biden honors the resilience of the survivors and their families, many of whom carry the weight of these experiences. He sends a message that healing and truth are central to building a just future. The Navajo Nation stands ready to work with his administration, as well as the next administration, to continue uncovering the truth, honoring those who were lost, and ensuring that these atrocities are never repeated.”

More than 29 million people have voted already in the 2024 election, CNN reports, as Donald Trump calls for his supporters to vote ahead of election day. So far, Republicans have cast 32 percent of ballots, up from 27 percent at this point in 2020. Whereas Democrats have cast 42 percent of the votes, down from 47 percent at this point in the last presidential election. In recent weeks, Trump and his supporters have increasingly called for Republicans to vote early – a strategy Republicans have not typically embraced.

JD Vance published an essay in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette today calling Kamala Harris “anti-Catholic”. The news comes just a day after Donald Trump attended a campaign event at a church in Zebulon, Georgia yesterday, where he claimed Catholics are “threated worse than anybody.” Later, at a CNN town hall yesterday evening, Harris spoke openly about her Christian faith, noting that she prays every day.

In the Post-Gazette essay, Vance argues that Harris and other Democrats have “mocked” Catholics and that her support of progressive policies – like same-sex marriage and gender-affirming healthcare – is anti-Catholic.

Kamala Harris is polling slightly ahead of Donald Trump in the swing state of Michigan, according to recently released survey results from Michigan State University. As of 17 October, our polling showed Trump leading the state by a narrow one-point margin.

According to Michigan State University, Harris is leading Trump at 52 percent to 48 percent among likely voters. Michigan, which holds 16 electoral votes, voted for Joe Biden in 2020 – but the state is hotly contested this year, in part as the state’s large Arab American community grapples with which candidate to support following the war in Gaza.

Celebrities rally at Kamala Harris event in Georgia

George Chidi

Opening his rally in Tempe, Arizona, Donald Trump said he watched Kamala Harris’ town hall on CNN last night and called her performance “pathetic”. Later, he denounced reporters in the building for focusing their cameras on his face and not the charts he shows at his rallies. His comments that journalists are “bad people” and “the enemy of the people” spurred a chorus of chants from his supporters, who booed the reporters in the building.

In the final days of the 2024 presidential campaign, Kamala Harris is gearing up for another podcast interview, this time with former NFL player Shannon Sharpe for his show Club Shay Shay. The interview, which will tape in Atlanta, will air on Monday, 28 October.

Harris has embraced podcast interviews in the final weeks of the election, with appearances on Call Her Daddy and All The Smoke. Guardian reporter Jesse Hassenger has more on Harris’ and Trump’s podcast appearances:

Donald Trump’s rally in Tempe, Arizona, is starting late. Meanwhile, his running mate JD Vance is expected to take the stage shortly at a separate event in Waterford, Michigan. We’ll alert you of any developments as the events get underway. Trump is expected to hold another rally in Las Vegas, Nevada, this evening after Kamala Harris campaigns alongside ex-president Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen in Atlanta this afternoon.

In a rare post on X, Donald Trump is denouncing his former chief of staff John Kelly, who recently made news for saying Trump meets the definition of a fascist. In the post, Trump calls Kelly a “bad general”, an apparent reference to a separate interview Kelly gave the Atlantic where he described Trump lamenting that he did not have generals who were loyal in the way he believed German military commanders had been to Hitler.

Robert Tait has more on Kelly’s comments about Trump’s authoritarian leanings:

As Joe Biden travels to Arizona and Donald Trump prepares to take the stage at two rallies there today, Phoenix police have arrested a man suspected of setting fire to a mailbox there where mail-in ballots were damaged this morning. The news comes just days after Tempe police arrested a separate man in connection with three shootings at Democratic party campaign offices in Tempe.

The Arizona Republic reports that Phoenix police arrested Dieter Klofkorn, who told investigators he lit the fire because he wanted to be arrested, this morning. Before firefighters could extinguish the fire, the New York Times reports, approximately 20 ballots were damaged. Arizona secretary of state Adrian Fontes told the paper that voters whose ballots were damaged will receive a new ballot.

Donald Trump will be taking the stage at his rally in Tempe, Arizona, shortly, where he is expected to return to the issue that has defined his campaign: immigration. According to his prepared remarks, Trump will argue that Kamala Harris’s handling of the border should disqualify her from the presidency.

Trump will be joined on stage by Kari Lake, a former television news anchor and dedicated follower of Trump’s who is running for the state’s open Senate seat. Ahead of her appearance in Tempe, Lake told the Associated Press that she would use the CBP One app, which allows migrants to request asylum at the south-west border, to deport people if elected.

“That app works both ways,” Lake said. “In January 2025, we’re gonna control that app and we’re gonna find the people who invaded our country and we’re going to send them home.”